The United States – birthplace and home of the American Dream – is supposed to be the land of upward mobility. It’s not. At least not for me.
Within a few hours of landing in Malaysia, I was playing badminton with millionaires and doctors and lawyers. They were better than me.
Last night, an 11pm phone call prompted a bar run to a place called Silk. James had a bottle of Hennessy there he’d previously purchased; they’d sealed it and had it waiting for his return. Wearing sports shorts, I walked into Silk, a club with laser lights flashing and a live band so loud that to communicate we had to scream in each others’ ears.
A waiter named Alvin poured the Hennessy into cups of ice cubes and sloshed complimentary coke on top. He had dyed his hair that reddish blond which is pretty much the only other color Asians can get. He had angular bangs. We gave him a cup and he drank with us. It tasted like syrup; no kick.
James brought drinks to the middle aged men behind us, friends of his mother. The life lesson they had imparted upon him early on in life, he said, was that, when in Thailand, one should always pick the ugliest whore. The prettier the prostitute, the more likely the chance she has or at one point had man-parts.
The second half of the band’s set features some heart-rending ballads. At one point the lead singer holds out his drink to me and we cheers in the air. James says they dedicated the song (a jangly cover of the Carpenters’ Top of the World) to me because it was in English and I’m the only white person in the bar. I drink to that.
There are two girls in the band. A singer with a short light blue skirt and naturally good looks and, in the back, a comely bassist in scuffy sneakers, wrinkled jeans, and a button-down black shirt. Despite the fact that the bassist sucks in her cheeks in an objectively unattractive fashion and despite the strobe lights revealing the bra beneath the singer’s sheer shirt, the bassist will always be more interesting to me than any pretty frontwoman.
As the band launches into a Cantonese version of the Cranberries’ Dreams, we kill the rest of the bottle. Two waitresses come over. One flirts with James, brushing the mole on face and giggling. The other touches my arm and pushes her breasts into me as she yells into my ear. She uses her limited English to indicate that she’s awful thirsty and sure could go for a drink right about now. She wants me to buy beer. I smile drunkenly at her and shake my head.
In the early hours of the morning we strut out the door. I feel like a million bucks. I’m a rock star. I’m a pimp. I’m rich. I’m elite. And, you never know, soon I may very well even get a job. You know, eventually.
[I have no idea where to buy this. Just grab the Passion Pit version and call it a day.]